A folk hero to Republicans for his upset of Democrat Martha Coakley and blue jeans and barn jacket everyman persona, Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown will visit his neighbor state to the south for an Oct. 9 rally for GOP gubernatorial hopeful Tom Foley.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Foley should be in Brown's good graces, having donned a barn jacket and jeans in one of his first television commercials.

Brown is scheduled to appear with Foley, who trails Democrat Dannel Malloy by just three points in the state's leading public opinion poll, for a 90-minute rally at the Riverfront Community Center in Glastonbury.

"It shows that many of the same issues and passion that elected Scott Brown in Massachusetts, I think, are at work for Tom Foley," Healy said.

A message seeking comment was left Wednesday for Brown, whose January special election victory over the establishment candidate and attorney general Coakley for the seat of the late Senate lion Ted Kennedy sent shockwaves across the country.

Brown's upcoming appearance was confirmed by a campaign spokeswoman for Foley, a venture capitalist and GOP fundraiser from Greenwich who served as U.S. ambassador to Ireland under President George W. Bush.

The winner of a bitter GOP August primary over current Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele of Stamford, Foley closed a nine-point gap to just three points against the former Stamford mayor Malloy over a two-week period in the latest Quinnipiac University poll.

State Democratic Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo minimized the impact that Brown will have on Connecticut's gubernatorial race, however.

"I'm sure we're going to be seeing a lot Republicans coming in the state to try and make Foley look good, but I think the reality is that people see what Tom Foley is really like, how he says what he thinks people want to hear at the time," DiNardo said.

Staff writer Neil Vigdor can be reached at neil.vigdor@scni.com or at 203-625-4436.